By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (August 18^th 2020)  

Shameful 

Charles Hefferon made Olympic Games history. He was the first ‘African’ winner of an Olympics medal in the Marathon. He was also an immigrant – twice actually. His privilege enabled him to come to South Africa. He fought in the Boer War and stayed in the country that Portuguese adventurer, Bartolomeu Dias, did not discover.  

Hefferon was white. His privilege gave him opportunities denied to non-whites by the racist colonial administration of the Cape. The infamous Cecil Rhodes died two years before St Louis’ disgraceful Olympic Games. Segregated and overtly racist, it spawned calls for a boycott over these shameful policies. But these were measures that the white supremacist, Rhodes, would have welcomed had he lived. His influence, however, lived on and was allowed to infect South African sport. 

The Tswana Pioneers 

Tswana veterans of the Boer War, Len Taunyane and Jan Mashiane, were recruited for activities in the disgracefully racist Louisiana Purchase Exposition – an event designed to commemorate the Louisiana Purchase, which had occurred a century earlier. The purchase, achieved by white supremacists, Thomas Jefferson and Napoléon Bonaparte, had been paid for by the blood and sacrifice of the self-liberated former slaves of St Domingue (Haiti). 

Among the areas it brought into the enlarged United States of America (USA) was Missouri. That included St Louis. 

A century later, St Louis’ white leaders wanted to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase. The Olympic Games, scheduled for Chicago, was part of their plan. They bullied, cajoled and blackmailed the International Olympic Committee (IOC) into moving the Games by threatening to organise a rival event. Reluctantly, Baron Pierre de Coubertin and the IOC caved in. It was a very bad decision – one that shames the Olympic movement. 

The intolerable racism resulted in a boycott call led by St Louis’ black community. The racist organisers wanted black people to support the Games by paying admittance to second rate segregated views. The black community responded by calling for a boycott and helping non-white participants to escape, finding accommodation and work for them. The disgraceful racism of St Louis’ Exposition and Olympic Games and its acquiescence with it shames the IOC. 

At the very least, St Louis’ Olympiad deserves condemnation and an asterisk. 

Another Shameful Chapter 

Charles Hefferon came second in the 1908 Olympic Games Marathon (for South Africa). Like its predecessor in St Louis four years earlier, it was a very strange race. Among the few finishers in St Louis’ Marathon – a race that should never have been allowed to take place as it was immensely dangerous – were Tswana runners, Len Taunyane and Jan Mashiane. 

Despite their magnificent achievement, they were not invited to compete again. The Tswana athletes were victimised by the colonial authorities who reacted angrily to Taunyane and Mashiane competing at all. They decreed that they had not competed for South Africa and that in the future only white people would be allowed to compete for South Africa – that was despite the black runners outperforming the white runner in St Louis.  

Taunyane and Mashiane disappeared from history and also the Olympics. That shames Africa and the IOC. They are an essential part of African sporting history and the Olympics too. It disgraces both that the shameful wrongs done to both athletes have not been corrected. It also requires an asterisk on both South Louis’ Olympiad and the disgraceful reaction to non-white competitors in South Africa until the fall of Apartheid.  

Another Controversial Marathon 

St Louis’ Marathon had almost killed the race as an Olympic event – it almost cost competitors their lives too due to appalling race-planning. The timing of the race was badly wrong due to heat.  

1908 was extremely controversial too. Italy’s Dorando Pietri was disqualified for receiving help although the sympathy vote he received as  result set him up for life. The eventual winner, Johnny Hayes, of the USA could and perhaps should have been disqualified too for the same reason.  

Hayes was fortunate. Hefferon – the victim of the ‘assistance’ that Hayes received – let it pass. 

But Hefferon’s national affiliation is strange too. Although listed as South African, he was born and bred a Briton. He moved with his family to Canada before settling in South Africa and fighting in the Boer War. He competed for his ‘new’ nation in the 1908 Olympic Games, although he would soon turn professional find a new country and career. 

So, South Africa was content to allow white immigrants to represent it in the Olympic Games but not born and bred non-white athletes. 

Hefferon turned professional in 1909 and returned to England. In 1912 he settled in Canada. He worked in law enforcement after World War I, dying on duty in 1932 after being hit by motorist.  

But while Hefferon was welcomed by South Africa’s Olympic body and colonial authorities, Len Taunyane and Jan Mashiane were treated with racist disdain. They were denied the opportunity to develop their skills and improve their times and indeed South African sport too. They should have been afforded the courtesy of competing again and developed as athletes and role-models.  

All that and more was denied to them and all aspiring non-white athletes. It was South Africa’s loss. It was also the Olympics’ loss.